Getting started on the right foot, the 3 core skills
When you watch a first-time soccer player, regardless of age, she tends to move slowly and react to the ball instead of controlling it. The touch is too hard or too soft, not like Goldilocks, just right. When the ball is coming at him, he struggles to decide how to get it under control. If you have spent any time around novice players, these images should be familiar to you.
With the start of a new season, our program always gets a lot of players new to the game in every age group. Since I never played the game until I was a junior in high school, I am the prime example of an older player just starting out. A recreational coach can never depend on all of his or her players having had prior experience. In fact, the most common comment I receive from coaches is that there is such a wide range of abilities on their teams that they have difficulty making the practice appropriate for everyone.
While I have always been skills focused in my approach to player development (at the expense of tactics), it was the National Youth License course that most informed my philosophy regarding what is important for the development of a novice soccer player. The greatest pressure a novice player feels is the pressure of time. When the ball is traveling towards the player, fear or excitement are the dominant emotions. As a result, the player resorts to the fastest way to solve the problem, he kicks the ball away.
Core Skill #1: Dribbling
The KINS program has at its core the idea that Kicking Is Not Soccer. This program emphasizes dribbling as the primary skill. In the program, coaches are encouraged to teach their players how to dribble so that they can solve the problem of what to do with the ball in a more sophisticated way. You can read about some research done on the KINS program here. I strongly agree with the idea that dribbling is the most important skill we can teach our novice players and I do endorse the approach of the KINS program.
Dribbling is difficult because if the player tries a move and is beaten by the defender and loses the ball, then she has to deal with the emotional results of failing. Often, coaches will reinforce this perception by complaining about a player being selfish or failing to consider other options that wouldn't result in a turnover. You can see this clearly in the body language of a player immediately after a failed dribbling attempt. It may affect the player for the rest of the game.
If she kicks it away, then it might end up going in the right direction and she might earn praise for doing it. What she won't learn is that sometimes you will succeed when you try something new and sometimes you will fail. However, if you never try to dribble past an opponent, then your failure rate will always be 100%. Players who never opt to try and dribble past an opponent are much easier to defend because they have removed an important tool from their tool kit.
Core Skill #2: Controlling the ball
While the KINS philosophy is excellent, it is also limited in focusing on just one skill. In addition to dribbling, players also need to learn how to control the ball. It is often said that you can tell the quality of a player simply by watching his first touch. Players who can control a ball in one touch and use that touch to prepare for the next touch have more time to deal with the other pressures of the game, like opponent or time. If you know what you are doing with the ball before the ball gets there, there is a much higher probability that you can achieve that plan.
There is this cool law of physics, the law of gravity, that allows us to predict where and when a ball is going to become playable. Having said that, it is much easier to control the ball under some circumstances than others. For example, a ball rolling on the ground provides much more data about speed and direction than a ball in the air or a bouncing ball. Consequently, players have much more difficulty with bouncing or flighted balls than rolling balls.
The absolute best controlling surface in most circumstances is the foot. Because of the law of gravity, objects will eventually fall to Earth no matter how high another player kicks them up in the air. So controlling the ball should be first focused on using the foot and its different surfaces.
With younger players (U8 and younger), much of the ball control should focus on receiving rolling balls first and bouncing balls second. Older players will also have to deal with flighted balls and most have extreme difficulty getting their body in the right place to even attempt to control it. Evidence of this is clear when you see the player cower as a ball flies towards them. The novice player must become both comfortable and desensitized to the situation before she can handle it comfortably. Having watched generations of novice players struggle with this aspect of the game, I feel it is our greatest failing as coaches.
Core Skill #3: Shield and Turn
We all know that younger players have difficulty changing directions, but regardless of age all players have this habit of turning into the defender when they attempt to change direction. They are constantly turning the ball into the path of the defender, where they promptly lose it and are forced to defend.
A player who can put his body between the ball and the defender and who can use his body to shield the defender while turning is going to gain both time and confidence. There are actually two kinds of time this skill creates for the player. First, he has time to make a decision about what he is going to do next. If he is unsure about what to do, this skill can give him valuable moments to decide. The second kind of time is what it creates for his teammates. They have time to get into better positions to support him and to get into an attacking shape. Basically, the ability to shield allows the player to control the tempo of the game. That is a powerful skill that will help the player gain control over the situation and grow rapidly in confidence.
I have already covered this in another post (show them your bootie, not your belly), so I am not going to go into any more detail about it here other than to say that it is really difficult to do and takes a lot of patience by the coach to commit to learning it. Two dribbling skills that are associated with the shield and turn move are toe taps and pull backs. To help get players ready for shield and turn, I have added these to my basic skills section of my dribbling warmup activities. You can see them in the model session I did here with the U6's.
Summary
As coach or parent, if you want your child to develop as rapidly as possible and gain the maximum amount of enjoyment out of playing soccer, the key skill to learn is not passing or shooting, but an intense focus on these three core skills.
Coaches deciding on what to emphasize during a season should always start by assessing their player's abilities on these three skills and see what you can add to their abilities during the season. That should give you a framework for player development that helps all players, but especially the novice player.
With the start of a new season, our program always gets a lot of players new to the game in every age group. Since I never played the game until I was a junior in high school, I am the prime example of an older player just starting out. A recreational coach can never depend on all of his or her players having had prior experience. In fact, the most common comment I receive from coaches is that there is such a wide range of abilities on their teams that they have difficulty making the practice appropriate for everyone.
While I have always been skills focused in my approach to player development (at the expense of tactics), it was the National Youth License course that most informed my philosophy regarding what is important for the development of a novice soccer player. The greatest pressure a novice player feels is the pressure of time. When the ball is traveling towards the player, fear or excitement are the dominant emotions. As a result, the player resorts to the fastest way to solve the problem, he kicks the ball away.
Core Skill #1: Dribbling
The KINS program has at its core the idea that Kicking Is Not Soccer. This program emphasizes dribbling as the primary skill. In the program, coaches are encouraged to teach their players how to dribble so that they can solve the problem of what to do with the ball in a more sophisticated way. You can read about some research done on the KINS program here. I strongly agree with the idea that dribbling is the most important skill we can teach our novice players and I do endorse the approach of the KINS program.
Dribbling is difficult because if the player tries a move and is beaten by the defender and loses the ball, then she has to deal with the emotional results of failing. Often, coaches will reinforce this perception by complaining about a player being selfish or failing to consider other options that wouldn't result in a turnover. You can see this clearly in the body language of a player immediately after a failed dribbling attempt. It may affect the player for the rest of the game.
If she kicks it away, then it might end up going in the right direction and she might earn praise for doing it. What she won't learn is that sometimes you will succeed when you try something new and sometimes you will fail. However, if you never try to dribble past an opponent, then your failure rate will always be 100%. Players who never opt to try and dribble past an opponent are much easier to defend because they have removed an important tool from their tool kit.
Core Skill #2: Controlling the ball
While the KINS philosophy is excellent, it is also limited in focusing on just one skill. In addition to dribbling, players also need to learn how to control the ball. It is often said that you can tell the quality of a player simply by watching his first touch. Players who can control a ball in one touch and use that touch to prepare for the next touch have more time to deal with the other pressures of the game, like opponent or time. If you know what you are doing with the ball before the ball gets there, there is a much higher probability that you can achieve that plan.
There is this cool law of physics, the law of gravity, that allows us to predict where and when a ball is going to become playable. Having said that, it is much easier to control the ball under some circumstances than others. For example, a ball rolling on the ground provides much more data about speed and direction than a ball in the air or a bouncing ball. Consequently, players have much more difficulty with bouncing or flighted balls than rolling balls.
The absolute best controlling surface in most circumstances is the foot. Because of the law of gravity, objects will eventually fall to Earth no matter how high another player kicks them up in the air. So controlling the ball should be first focused on using the foot and its different surfaces.
With younger players (U8 and younger), much of the ball control should focus on receiving rolling balls first and bouncing balls second. Older players will also have to deal with flighted balls and most have extreme difficulty getting their body in the right place to even attempt to control it. Evidence of this is clear when you see the player cower as a ball flies towards them. The novice player must become both comfortable and desensitized to the situation before she can handle it comfortably. Having watched generations of novice players struggle with this aspect of the game, I feel it is our greatest failing as coaches.
Core Skill #3: Shield and Turn
We all know that younger players have difficulty changing directions, but regardless of age all players have this habit of turning into the defender when they attempt to change direction. They are constantly turning the ball into the path of the defender, where they promptly lose it and are forced to defend.
A player who can put his body between the ball and the defender and who can use his body to shield the defender while turning is going to gain both time and confidence. There are actually two kinds of time this skill creates for the player. First, he has time to make a decision about what he is going to do next. If he is unsure about what to do, this skill can give him valuable moments to decide. The second kind of time is what it creates for his teammates. They have time to get into better positions to support him and to get into an attacking shape. Basically, the ability to shield allows the player to control the tempo of the game. That is a powerful skill that will help the player gain control over the situation and grow rapidly in confidence.
I have already covered this in another post (show them your bootie, not your belly), so I am not going to go into any more detail about it here other than to say that it is really difficult to do and takes a lot of patience by the coach to commit to learning it. Two dribbling skills that are associated with the shield and turn move are toe taps and pull backs. To help get players ready for shield and turn, I have added these to my basic skills section of my dribbling warmup activities. You can see them in the model session I did here with the U6's.
Summary
As coach or parent, if you want your child to develop as rapidly as possible and gain the maximum amount of enjoyment out of playing soccer, the key skill to learn is not passing or shooting, but an intense focus on these three core skills.
Coaches deciding on what to emphasize during a season should always start by assessing their player's abilities on these three skills and see what you can add to their abilities during the season. That should give you a framework for player development that helps all players, but especially the novice player.
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